Tideway Public Art Programme Launch
Art on the Tideway
Year
2013-2025
End Client Tideway
Client fereday pollard and Jacobs
Services
Public art strategy development and public art programme delivery
Locations
20 locations across London
Our Role
We have been commissioned by Tideway to devise a public art strategy and to deliver the resulting arts programme. Since 2013 we have been working closely with the client, design teams, contractors, fabricators and stakeholders to support the artists in delivering this programme of integrated artworks.
Art on the Tideway is an ambitious public art programme for London, inviting leading contemporary artists to meaningful connect with London’s past and future as the tunnel is built. With nearly fifty temporary and permanent commissions, it challenges artists to animate new environments and create engaging interventions for the city’s diverse audiences. Where possible community engagement and involvement was included.
The public realm and the art is visible legacy on which the project will be judged. High quality places for events, places for people to sit, meet, and enjoy the river and all of this in the context of improving the health of the River Thames.
Thames Tideway Tunnel
The Thames Tideway Tunnel is a 25 km tunnel running mostly under the tidal section of the River Thames through central London to capture, store and convey for treatment almost all the raw sewage and rainwater that currently overflows into the river. It runs from Acton in west London to Abbey Mills in the east where it joins the Lee Tunnel to the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works – the largest in Europe.
The project has created 3 acres of new public realm, built out into the river. Some public realm sites are within existing operational pumping stations, streetscapes or parks and gardens – important community assets in their own right, but roughly half of them – where there was no existing land to build the vertical shafts – have been built out into the Thames – the surface of each will is a new riverside public space for the enjoyment of Londoners. The tunnel is now fully operational and is already improving the ecology of the River Thames by preventing millions of tonnes of storm sewage spilling into the river.
Tideway’s design approach was built around twin pillars – Placemaking and Storytelling. No two sites are the same, an approach that was entirely deliberate. Each site is unique, tailored both specifically to its place and the engineering required below. Every shaft is a functional element of London’s sewerage system with all the access and maintenance requirements. Designing the areas above the shaft to fulfil their engineered function as well as act as new and enjoyable public realm has required particularly close collaboration between engineering and architecture and landscape disciplines from the very inception of the project.
We wanted to use the design of the physical public realm to celebrate the history and important of London’s rivers to its development – as well as the engineering achievements involved in keeping them clean. This is why we invited artists into the project to develop integrated works for the sites – with briefs based on historic narratives around the river. Th diverse range of artists have each engaged with a different facet of the river in a different way through work located on its banks.
Now with many of the commissions are complete and installed it is clear that each is engaging in a different way. Some are playful, some enigmatic, many are beautiful. They all contribute complexity, personality and originality of these new spaces.
The Art Programme
We produced:
1 Scoping Document developing the structure and approach, with establishment of the Executive Art Panel to steer the programme
1 Art Procurement Policy how to appoint the artists and procure the artworks
1 Public Art Strategy consulting with Tideway staff and specialists, 14 local authorities, ACE, GLA, Historic England, cultural organisations and Thames Water
25 temporary artworks, including 12 hoarding artworks (in situ for up to 7 yrs. seen by millions, including globally), 2 artist residencies and numerous events. Involving 18 artists
107 artist-led workshops, directly engaging 6,885 people (aged >1yr to 90yrs)
24 permanent artworks across 22 sites, all with a required design life of 60-120 years. With 16 artists, many with 2 sites each and one artist with 3 sites
Total number of artist commissioned 37, of which 19 women, 17 men and 1 mixed duo. Including all of the shortlisted artists, the total number of artists was 97
16 micrototems, the project wide signage, wayfinding and interpretation installed at 12 locations
2 films on the making of the artworks, numerous films on the completion of the artworks and opening of the sites
3 commemorative cast bronze plaques, unveiled by members of the Royal Family.
“The rich context of these “liquid histories” provides the curatorial framework for the art programme. Our title and central narrative – Turning to face the River stated our intent.
It is our aspiration to draw people to the River and make them look at it a new.”
Permanent Artworks
These have been produced through collaboration with the design teams and main work contractors, specialist fabricators and foundries.
The contractor for the six sites in the west is BAM Nuttall, Morgan Sindall and Balfour Beatty joint venture. Lead Designer is Arup, with Arup and Atkins as concept and delivery architect and landscape architect.
For the eight central sites is Ferrovial, Laing O’Rourke joint venture. Lead Designer is Aecom, with Hawkins\Brown as concept architect, Gillespies landscape architect, and delivery architect Orbit with Hyland Edgar Driver landscape architect.
For the eight sites in the east is Costain Vinci Bachy joint venture. Lead Designer Mott MacDonald, with WW+P as concept architect and landscape architect, and delivery architect WW+P with Hyland Edgard Driver landscape architect.
West:
Yemi Awosile, Extract and Distil, Dormay Street and Domestic Motif, King George’s Park, Wandsworth
Claire Barclay, Water Finds a Level, Putney Embankment
Adam Chodzko, A Way from Heaven, Barn Elms
Sarah Staton, Colin, Sybil, Sir Joseph Bazalgette, Acton Storm Tanks, Smart Queen Caroline, Hammersmith Pumping Station and
Standing Heron and Heron in Flight, Carnwath Riverside
Central:
Jo Chapman, Ascent, Lots Road Pumping Station - yet to be fabricated
Nathan Coley, Stages, Bazalgette Embankment (Blackfriars) - site opening soon
Frances Presley, Falcon Brook, York Gardens (Falconbrook)
Florian Roithmayr, Moving In, Chelsea Quay
Richard Wentworth, Effra Quay (Albert Embankment) - being fabricated but site open and Tyburn Quay (Victoria Embankment) - site yet to open
East:
Lubna Chowdhary, Bone, Soot and Oil, Earl Pumping Station - site yet to open, and Optical Flow, Greenwich Pumping Station
Leo Fitzmaurice, Waveform, Chambers Wharf, Bermondsey - being fabricated, site not open
Hew Locke OBE, Cargoes, King Edward Memorial Park, Wapping - site yet to open
Studio Weave, Deptford Plinths, Deptford Church Street - site yet to open
Cross project:
Robert Green, Doves Type, project wide text on river walls and thresholds
Marina Willer, Pentagram, Bronze Plaques, Abbey Mills Pumping Station and project wide
Dorothea Smartt FSL, Hidden Rivers, Hidden Times, project wide poems on the ventilation columns.
Temporary artworks
Tim Davies, Figures on the Foreshore, Nine Elms Lane, Battersea (commissioned with Thames Water)
Renata Fernandez, Timeline, Carnwath Riverside, South Fulham
Joy Gerrard, Air-Map and Tunnel/Map/Draw, Bazalgette Embankment (Blackfriars)
Matheson Marcault, PARK PARK, King Edward Memorial Park, Wapping
Edwin Mingard, Reflection, Greenwich Pumping Station
Ames Pennington, 14 daysofwashingup, Putney Embankment
Simon Roberts, The Thames Wunderkammer: Victoria Embankment in Two Parts, Tyburn Quay (Victoria Embankment)
Emma Smith, Because, Chelsea Quay
Eleanor Stanley, Inner Eye, Child’s I, Falconbrook Pumping Station, York Road
Emily Tracy, Through Kaleidoscope Eyes, King George’s Park, Wandsworth
Madeleine Waller, Hidden in the Tide, Deptford Church Street
John Walter, Stories from the Sewer, Chambers Wharf, Bermondsey
Tania Kovats, Dirty Water, Tideway’s inaugural artist in residence, 2017
Heather Peak & Ivan Morison, Rock Cups, 2019-21 artist in residence
Martin Parr, Unseen City, a selection of images taken from the exhibition of the same name, commissioned by and orginally displayed at Guildhall Art Gallery, London.
These were primarily site-specific commissions for the construction site hoardings, which were developed in collaboration with local residents, schools or other organisations. Most of the artists have been commissioned via open calls for artists local to the sites. The artworks were in situ for approximately three years to nine years in some cases.
“Many thanks to all the artists who have endured a complex and very long process from being selected to their work being installed.
They have created a new collection of artworks for London which we hope will become a familiar part of the landscape, new landmarks, places to meet or just see the river and London from a different perspective.”
Key facts
There was no requirement for public art to be part of the project, with the exception of Putney Embankment. Under the Development Consent Order – the special planning vehicle that went through Parliament giving planning consent for the Tunnel, Tideway was required to write a Heritage Interpretation Strategy to be implemented physically through the landscape designs on the sites – this is provided the opportunity to introduce public art. This approach is described in the Public Art Strategy. Along with the artist selection process, which also helped to shape the programme and involved representatives from local authority arts offices, community representatives, arts organisations, Thames Water, Tideway, the design teams and specialists. The art for most sites had to be integrated into the project post tender.
We have worked with the three main works contractors (MWC’s) to build on their community engagement, education and training programmes.
The contract is an NEC3. The artists are appointed directly by Tideway, the client, with the MWC’s being responsible for consenting, procuring, fabricating and installing the art. With the costs covered by agreed compensation events. How much the art will cost has yet to be fully determined, but this and the costs for the design and delivery of the public realm, landscaping and art is approx. 2% of the total project cost £4.6bn.
The CEO, Andy Mitchell is a major champion of the art programme, and with the senior management team, project sponsor and representatives from Thames Water make up the Executive Art Panel.
The cost will be paid for once operating via leasing to Thames Water (a private utilities company) and their bill payers. It is not government funded. Tideway is a private company and is the licensed infrastructure provider for its finance, building, maintenance and operation. The funding for the construction is from four main investors – mainly pension funds. Tideway will own the tunnel, Thames Water will own and maintain the above ground structures – including the artworks.
The maintenance/ownership of the public realm and the permanent art will be the responsibility of Thames Water at handover, due later in 2025.
A film about the making of some artworks is here.
August 2025 Guardian article by Olly Wainwright can be found here.
Tideway key facts can be found here.
Some other legacy information here.